If the meal or the match is too much, help is at hand

For Spanish executives lunchtime can be a stressful affair. Often lasting up to three hours, it usually consists of numerous glasses of wine with cigars to follow. Sometimes deals are done too.

But for those finding the strain too much, help is at hand. Thirty restaurants in Madrid are to install portable defibrillators, devices that could mean the difference between life and death.

The machines, costing £1,854 each and looking a little like a drinks dispenser, will appear in some of the finest eateries in the capital, including Sant Celoni, Pedro Larumbe, Combarro, Txistu and Asador Donostiarra. And, for excited football fans, Real Madrid FC has installed a machine in its own restaurant.

Led by the Spanish Heart Federation, and the Network of Restaurants Under Heart Protection, the project could also put machines in restaurants in Barcelona and Seville.

Campaigners believe the devices could save 700 lives a year in Spain, where 35,000 people die annually from heart attacks.

Josep Brugada, director of the Thorax Institute at the University of Barcelona, said: "If we save one life, we have won." He said use of the machines by the public would not harm patients.

Pedro Larumbe, a Madrid restaurateur, said the machines could save executives who have had one drink too many. "In restaurants you find you can do absolutely nothing else but ring the emergency services. These machines are easy to work and we should make the most of them."